May 6, 2004
Women in the ranks: Mentors, needs of lecturers, on committee’s agenda
Editor’s note: this is one of a series of columns by the chairs of the councils and committees of the Faculty Senate. Barbara Krieger-Brockett is chair of the Special Committee on Faculty Women.
The numbers of women faculty at the UW have been rising, and increasingly they are found in leadership positions such as program directors, vice provosts, and deans. One of these remarkable leaders was tragically lost early this year. She was Dean of the Graduate School Marcia Landolt, who for many of us was an inspiration, a mentor and a friend. Her upbeat outlook, the outstanding quality of her work and her character and her emphasis on improving the graduate student experience will be fondly remembered.
When Marcia came in the mid-1970s, there were few women in the sciences, fewer still in engineering. Women now comprise 31 percent of the total UW University ladder faculty (teaching and research faculty titles) as indicated in the most recent UW Workforce Profile (October 2003).
However, of the non-ladder faculty (lecturers, artists in residence, teaching associates), women comprise 58 percent of the total, nearly double the percentage. Of the part-time lecturers, women are 56 percent, and in absolute terms their numbers (176) exceed the number of female assistant professors at the UW (173) in October 2003.
The UW is experiencing the same nationwide trend found at other public universities, i.e., an increase in non-tenure track faculty as well as full- and part-time lecturers, consistent with flat budgets and increasing enrollment pressures (Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 24, 2004). While budget constraints make changes in this trend at the UW unlikely, we can make the work situation and opportunities for the full and part-time lecturers better.
With the able leadership of two senior lecturers, Ia Dubois and Lisa Coutu, as well as the Faculty Council on Faculty Affairs and the Senate Committee on Faculty Women, the Faculty Senate passed legislation that added another title, principal lecturer, to the opportunities open to lecturers, and offered further clarification regarding lecturers’ contract durations, eligibility for teaching awards, and other career opportunities.
This year, we crafted voting rights legislation to be more inclusive toward return part-time lecturers who have appointments averaging
50 percent time or greater for two consecutive years. While the legislation did not pass, it will likely be revisited.
Another topic of interest to the SCFW this year is the role of mentoring in faculty career development as well as in graduate education. Our committee has been exploring what resources are found on campus and how to make them more visible, what types of mentor training are available and desired, and how mentoring might differ for women.
In that activity, SCFW has partnered with the Special Committee on Minority Faculty, the President’s Advisory Committee on Women, the Center for Workforce Development and ADVANCE (an NSF-funded program for engineering and sciences) to reinforce the importance of good mentors, and to understand ways that the UW can help that are the most effective.
An ongoing important activity is to keep faculty informed about issues of interest to women and educators in general. An electronic mailing list, facultyw@u.washington.edu, is a monitored list to which anyone can subscribe and contribute. We receive announcements and news items of interest, and pass on pertinent ones to all who have wished to be on the mailing list.
Additionally on our website, http://www.washington.edu/faculty/facsenate/councils/scfw/scfw.html we have links to resources, some of which are listed below:
- Faculty Mentors (listed by department and school);
- UW Climate and Community Project of the College of Arts and Sciences
- Women in Science and Engineering — includes bibliography;
- A speech given at NSF for female science majors considering graduate school;
- An excellent salary negotiation site;
- A recently implemented “Librarian Personnel Code” that includes a mentoring package;
- The MIT Report on Faculty Women in Science: http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.pdf;
- A web search on “Women in Academia” on yahoo or google brings up many useful websites, articles, and profiles;
- Shaping a National Agenda for Women in Higher Education Conference March 27–29, 2000;
- Equal Employment Office: http://www.washington.edu/admin/eoo;
- Professionals in Science and Technology 1998 Salary and Employment;
- Parenting and Eldercare resources at the UW.
